Principle of Retribution for International Crimes Essay

Principle of Retribution for International Crimes - Essay Example h. Without a coherent philosophical theory of criminal punishment to justify international criminal justice, the mere authority or "permission" to apply a set of norms to international criminals remains vacuous. If such trials cannot provide substantive justice in a philosophically meaningful sense, they are more deeply flawed than any procedural objection would reveal. (John, 2001) The idea that all criminals should be punished for their illicit deeds, regardless of their political position, is at the heart of the modern international criminal law regime. The former argues that the benefits, over either the short or long run, of punishing people such as Goring or Saddam Hussein in a legal forum justify such trials. Such thinkers point to the usual battery of utilitarian arguments for punishment: deterring future crimes, establishing a historical record of the criminal acts, reforming lawbreakers, providing a sense of closure to their victims, and so forth The other, more abstract view declares that justice itself demands that these people be punished independent of any harmful or beneficial consequences that may arise from their trial. For retributivists, other benefits of punishment, though desirable in themselves, are morally insignificant. It is the latter view that is the only valid justification for trying the unique sorts of crimes that the international courts have been designed to handle. (Larry, 2005) Arnaud does not argue for the philosophical soundness of retributivism as such, nor he defendes the philosophical legitimacy of war-crimes trials in general. Specifically, he stated that one cannot make sense out of the intuitions, values, and beliefs that stand behind the current movement toward international criminal trials and war-crimes trials (or their shared ideology, if you will (Arnaud 2004, 1) unless one understands it to be rooted in a retributivist theory of punishment. While the term "ideology" is a loaded one, it nonetheless captures the point: the ideology standing behind modern international criminal law and the laws of war displays a noted bias in favor of the retributivist principles articulated by Kant (among others). Ultimately, war-crimes trials do not provide the greatest happiness for the greatest number. (Christopher 2002, 43-61) Despite some important philosophical differences among individual thinkers, retributivists share some common central beliefs. For these thinkers, the rationale for punishment is "metaphysical" in character in the sense that it is rooted in abstract principles of justice and right. Justice is the independent, nonmaterial motivation for punishment, and it serves as the sole determining ground for punishment. Punishment by a court (poena forensis) ... can never be inflicted merely as a

Hitchens Rationality of Atheism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Hitchens Rationality of Atheism - Essay Example And this puts the entire question of creation as proscribed by the religions a tall claim. Religion has been a major promoter of violence through out the world. Every one of the religions has fought their own 'crusades' for their own sacred places. How, he argues, is that there is difference between on location and the other on the surface of the earth He cites numerous examples where this has happened all over the world in the name of religions, be it Catholics, Hindus, Muslims or Jews. Similarly, the mad faiths people have on the religions have led them to take to unwanted assumptions and blind faiths. He quotes Heinrich Heine, 'In dark ages people are guided by religion, as in a pitch black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and the paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind old men for guides'. Most of the religions, according to him, promise punishments for sexual expletives any person might involve in. If sex is abhorred why was it that God had to have it at all God who was the all powerful creator, could have easily redesigned the entire evolution if he did not want human race to indulge in something like that. According to him, the 'creators' of religions, man, have done it to their advantage and to subjugate half of the human population to their control. And most of the monotheistic religions, preach that human beings are sinners and that they need to supplicate to God every day as under a monarch. Faiths in religion, religious dogmas and in astrology are all badly placed. Aristotle pointed out that twins do not have the same future whereas as per astrology they should be having almost similar future. All these arguments are presented by the author in support of atheism. Section 2: Critique of Hitchen's God is not Great. Your perception and evaluation of Hitchen's argument seems to be on the wrong premise. Hitchen declares himself as anti-theist and not atheist to start with. Though the title talks of God, in his book he is not presenting himself as a person anti to God. Therefore, we need not look for evidence in the book for arguments anti to God. As an anti-theism person, he is opposing the practices of theism as we know it. Theism and the dogmas of theism are laid down millenniums back and to say that they fit into the current situation does not belong to the scientific thinking. I think the litmus test has been wrongly applied and the perception of the author has not been taken into consideration. Applying the rule 1, denial of what is known is irrational, we could easily see and the author establishes starting from a number of scientific principles how the religious dogmas have criticized and crucified people who stood up with new ideas. Whether it is that earth goes round the sun or that witch craft does not exist, the principles of the religious theism did not allow reconsideration of their thoughts. It denied the known facts of the case. There are number of cases where Hitchen substantiates, theism has denied known scientific facts. Theism fails in the first test itself. Theism fails in the second test too. Whether it is the crusades or the creation of Israel at the end of the Second World War, theism has only created death and destruction in the name of religion. The belief in what is preached by theism has not led the people to rational living is what is the argument of

Social Work and the Law Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Social Work and the Law - Case Study Example In other instances, abuse reports from hospital visits were ignored and the child was returned to her abusers. The Timeline article noted that three social workers were sacked after a public inquiry by Lord Laming found them guilty of negligence. Since Victoria's death, there has been an upheaval in reforms to protect children, young people and vulnerable adults, especially in the areas of social work and the government in the UK. Under the Children's Act of 2004 (Smith 2005), legislation in the following areas has been introduced: physical and mental health, emotional well being, protection from harm and neglect, education training and recreation, contributions by children to society, and social and economic well being. The question becomes whether these generalized areas can become focused enough to matter. Studies indicate that the basic areas affected by the Act are the rights of children through the revised Mental Health Act; needs of pupils through Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA)__related to the number of new international family arrivals; disability awareness training; the Education Act 2005; help for people with dementia through the International Health Study related to quality of life; the need for new legislation prohibiting discrimination because of sexual orientation, and the effort to balance work and life in the community (Background 2006). This is an ambitious enterprise, but given past history, it is not likely that the Children Act 2004 will resolve all of the issues in conflict. There is presently a two-year assessment underway funded by the Nuffield Foundation which began in October 2004 and will continue to September 2006. The assessment is based on the Human Rights Act of 1998 which brought the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into UK domestic law, and the purpose is to determine anti-discriminatory measures available under the Equality Bill which extend to children and young people (All Party Parliamentary 2005). One concern in the Climbi inquiry was allegation of racism. Victoria was African and spoke little English (Timeline 2003). At present, no police officers criticised by the inquiry have lost their jobs, and one of the social workers involved has been allowed to resume working with children (Climbi Inquiry 2005). With anti-discrimination a key concern in the UK and Blacks, ethnic minorities and the disabled the focus of many reforms underway, the social aims of the UK government are commendable, but one wonders if they can actually chan ge public perception in a way that creates a safe environment for children. The policies contained in the law have weaknesses. The Equality Bill allows for enforcement against anti-discriminatory actions, but, according to the Child Impact Statement, "its powers in relation to the Human Rights Act 1998 are primarily promotional." Clause 9(2)(a) of the Equality Bill defines human rights as ECHR rights specifically, though subsection (b) enables the new Commission on Equality and Human Rights to exercise its functions in respect of other human rights. This could include the UN Convention on the Rights of the

Operating Systems Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Operating Systems - Research Paper Example There are several and diverse components of an operating system that include but not limited to the file management, security, memory and process management. It is worthwhile to compare each operating system to evaluate and assess the above given components of an operating system. The following paragraphs present the comparison of basic operating systems with respect to the above given features (Solomon, Russinovich & Polze, 2006). The file management system refers to the organization, management and manipulation of computer data in documents and files that is provided by the file manager (different with respect to the operating system) through a graphical user interface. The computer documents and files can be created, edited (existing file), viewed and deleted from the computer memory as well as the files can be arranged in computer directories / folders. The process of file management differs with respect to the operating system as presented in the following paragraphs (Goel, 2010). There are several file managers used by Microsoft Windows only that include but not limited to the Altap Salamander, FAR Manager, File Manager, Windows Explorer etc. The files are placed in the folders and the index contains the file information known as File Allocation Table (FAT). One of the latest file management systems of the Windows is the New Technology File System (NTFS). The NTFS store owner name, it provides POSIX file permissions, creation timestamps, last access timestamp, and last content modification timestamp. The Mac operating system uses the file managers that include: the Disk Order, Finder, Path Finder, and Xfile. The Disk order file manager provides the graphical user interface and shows the files as list view and twin panel view only. The Finder and Path Finder file managers show the icon, list view, panel view,

Creation vs. Evolution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Creation vs. Evolution - Essay Example The design of the world demonstrates that there should be the designer and the humans are the key source of information to support this idea. The first movements in favor of creationism were defined as American Fundamentalist Protestantism. They started early in the nineteenth century as an opposition to the theories of Charles Darwin. His theories were perceived as a direct threat to the Biblical writings and were thought to lead to the moral decay. The movement re-appeared in the after World War I period and creationists demanded the passage of the law to prohibit public school instruction about Darwin's evolution (Larson, 19). The manifestation of the movement in favor of creationism was the famous Monkey Trial (Scopes v State, 1927). It was the first time the evolution-creation arguments were presented in the court. The ruling was against the biology teacher who was convicted in teaching evolutionism. For the next 20 years, scientists have failed to provide enough arguments to gain the dominance in the court. As the result, publishers of the biology books have taken out all of the information about evolution, Darwin's theory was not taught at schools, and even the name of the theory was avoided. However, after the Soviet Union has launched its first satellite in 1957 the evolutionists awaked and managed to pass the National Defense Education Act (1959) under which the Biological Sciences with chapters on evolution and Darwin's theory were placed in the books again. Moreover, the teacher Susan Epperson has appealed to the court with the request to turn down the ruling in Scopes v State. In the case Epperson v. Arkansas the court has ruled in favour of evolution. The ruling was based on the idea that prohibiting teachers from teaching the theory of evolution (doctrine that man ascended from the lower order animals) and exclusion of the textbooks containing chapters on the theory was unlawful (Gilkey, 48). The fact that the theory of evolution has contradicted the belief in the lines written in the Book of Genesis does not make the Bible the exclusive source of doctrine on the origin of human kind. In addition, the First Amendment prohibits the requirement to teach subjects of any religious dogmas in public schools. However, it is important to understand that students should be aware about the evolution theory of Darwin as well as about the Biblical version of creation. The question is not whether or not evolution should be taught at school, but rather which story has valid basis. As the result, the creationists have succeeded in requiring the equal time for Biblical and scientific studies. Interestingly, until the passage of Arkansas Act 590 named "Balanced Treatment for Creation - Science and Evolution- Science Act" the definitions of creation and evolution have never been referred to. Paul Ellwanger, the head of the Citizens for Fairness in Education, has provided both definitions. Thus, the creation -science is scientific

Jack Nicklaus biography and he's impact on society Essay

Jack Nicklaus biography and he's impact on society - Essay Example The Introduction of tournaments like Jack Nicklaus International invitation has motivated golf lovers with different skill levels to participate and to enhance the popularity of the game. Nicklaus himself was the most dominant personality among the golfers of his generation who has taken efforts to bring the sport of golf to the forefront. Jack Nicklaus-The golf legend Jack Nicklaus was born in Ohio on 21st of January 1962 and he started playing gold at the age of ten and even at this stage he showed immense talent and the rise of a promising player was in progress even from his childhood. The world witnessed an irresistible growth of Nicklaus over the finest golf players like Arnold palmer, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller and Tom Watson in the next three decades. Nicklaus had eighteen professional and two armature wins in his golf career along with nineteen second and nine third place finishes. He has been ranked among the top ten players in 73 majors which constitute almost half of the successive majors he participated. Only five golf players in the world hold the record to win all the four major titles and Nicklaus became successful in obtaining this glorious achievement (Mackintosh 163). It is better to have a look in to the achievements of Jack’s golf career in order to get a clear picture of his extra ordinary talent as a golf player. He won six masters title in 1963, 1965, 1966 1972, 1975 and 1986, five PGA Championships in1963, 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1980, three British Opens in 1966, 1970 and 1978, and four U S Opens in 1962, 1967, 1972 and 1980. These tournaments are considered to be the key ones of professional golf. Nicklaus is the only one to hold the record for three time wins of all these four major tournaments. The list of his victories is pretty long and apart from the major tournament victories he won seventy one PGA Tours and achieved fifty eight second and thirty six third places. He also won five World Series of Golf titles, six numbers of Australian Opens, six Rider Cup appearances and many more victories around the world. Jack Grout discovered the abilities of Nicklaus for the first time and he took Nicklaus to the Scioto Country Club in Columbus his performance was very well appreciated by Senead, the defending champion of that period. Bobby Johns a legendary golf player of the era had made comment on the talent of the fifteen year old Nicklaus as â€Å"he plays a game with which I am totally unfamiliar,† which shows the expectations that golfers had regarding the future of Nicklaus (Mackintosh 164). The determination and a genuine desire to strive towards perfection always prompted Jack Nicklaus to look introspectively and question whether â€Å"he was making the proper adjustments to correct his swing technique during rounds when his play was inconsistent† (Shaw 86). It was this dedication, sincerity and hard work that made him an unchallenged champion in golf. Nicklaus turned professional after his victory in the 1961 U S Armature championship. In the year 1962, Nicklaus won U S Open title which was the first achievement in his professional golf career and in 1963 he won the Masters title and became the first ever golfer to achieve a

Target Corporation Essay Example for Free

Target Corporation Essay Operator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Target Corporation’s Fourth Quarter Earnings Release Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Wednesday, February 26, 2014. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Gregg Steinhafel, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead. Gregg Steinhafel Chairman, President and CEO Good morning, and welcome to our 2013 fourth quarter earnings conference call. On the line with me today are Kathy Tesija, Executive Vice President of Merchandising; and John Mulligan, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This morning, I will provide a high level summary of our fourth quarter results and strategic priorities for the year ahead, and Kathy will discuss category results, guest insights, and the holiday season. And finally, John will provide more detail on our financial performance, along with our financial outlook for 2014. Following John’s remarks, we’ll open the phone lines for a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, we are joined on this conference call by investors and others who are listening to our comments via webcast. Following this conference call, John Hulbert and John Mulligan will be available throughout the day to answer any follow-up questions you may have. Also as a reminder, any forward-looking statements that we make this morning are subject to risks and uncertainties, the most important of wh ich are described in the 8-K we filed this morning. Finally, in these remarks, we refer to adjusted earnings per share, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. A reconciliation to our GAAP results is included in this morning’s press release posted on our Investor Relations website. Target’s fourth quarter financial results reflect better than expected U.S segments performance in the first three weeks of the holiday season, followed by meaningfully softer results, following our December 19th announcement that criminals had gained access to guest payment card data in our U.S stores. In total, fourth quarter comparable sales decreased 2.5% consistent with our updated guidance in January. Throughout the quarter our  team managed the business extremely well, adjusting both inventory and expenses to match the rapidly changing pace of sales. As a result, our US operations generated fourth quarter adjusted earnings per share of $1.30 at the high-end of the updated guidance we provided in January. In Canada, we worked diligently to leverage holiday traffic in an effort to clear excess inventory. Markdowns resulting from this effort drove a very low gross margin rate, but allowed us to reduce average inventory per store in Canada by approximately 30% between the beginning and end of the fourth quarter. Canadian segment EPS dilution was $0.40 in the quarter, $0.05 better than the updated guidance we provided in January. We are pleased that our early cycle Canadian stores have seen the most improvement giving us confidence that we will continue to see continued improvement across all our Canadian stores in 2014. Fourth quarter GAAP EPS of $0.81 reflects U.S and Canadian segment performance along with costs related to our recent restructuring in data breach along with small accounting and tax matters. As we work to address the impact of the mid-December data breach, we have put the welfare of our guests at the center of every decision we’ve made. We have communicated in early and often providing the best information we had about new facts in ongoing on the ongoing investigation. We consistently assured our guests that they would have zero liability for any unauthorized charges on their card accounts resulting from the breach. We increased fraud detection for REDcard holders and extended free credit monitoring and identity theft protection for any guests who has ever shopped one of our U.S stores. We are truly sorry for the impact this breach has had on our guests, team members and other stakeholders and I want to reiterate that we are committed for making things right. We know these initial steps are part of a longer process. We continue to listen to our guests and we know that this incident and recent security breaches at other companies have shaken their confidence in both Target and the U.S payment system more broadly. To rebuild guest confidence, we’re committed to an end-to-end review in cooperation with third-party experts to understand how the breach occurred, the identification and acceleration of solutions to provide enhanced protection in the future and engagement with third-party experts to protect the industry and consumers from future threats. Accordingly, were taking the following steps. We are conducting an end-to-end forensic investigation  of our processes, systems and personnel to make informed decisions on potential security enhancements. We are accelerating the adoption of advanced chip enabled technology, investing more than $100 million to equip our stores and to issue Target branded smart chip credit and debit cards. We have long supported this more secured technology; a broad adoption in the U.S market has been elusive. We believe that recent events will help the industry to reach a tipping point to an accelerated option in the U.S and we are investing to ensure that Target is a clear leader in driving this change. We are working collaboratively with a broad set of stakeholders in the payment card space including banks, retailers, trade associations, payment processors and networks to share in advance best practices and foster future innovation. We helped launch and will be an active leader in retail industry, cyber security and data privacy initiative. In addition, we are investing $5 million in a new coalition with the Better Business Bureau and National Cyber Security Alliance and the National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance to advance public education around cyber security and the dangers of consumer scams. While we cant yet assess the full impact of this crime against Target and our guests, we’re pleased that sales have started to recover from the trends we observed following breach related announcements in December and January. Importantly, because we’re in a strong financial position, we expect to absorb any near-term financial impacts while continuing to invest in projects that are key to our long-term success. Our Company has a long history of innovation, disciplined management, and a strong long-term financial performance and we are committed to upholding the principles which has have sustained this Company success for many decades. And while 2013 was a disappointing year financially, we have entered the New Year with the right plans in place to grow profitably and generate meaningfully improved financial performance in 2014 and beyond. In the U.S., we have demonstrated our ability to manage the business with discipline and generate strong financial performance even in a challenging environment. In fact, Kathy will outline in more detail we were very pleased with our holiday season results prior to the announcement of the data breach. In preparation for fourth quarter, we may change this to our holiday promotion and marketing and we were pleased that our in stocks were running at all-time highs. As a result, U.S segment fourth quarter  sales were running ahead of plan prior to December 19th. Looking ahead, we will apply the insights we gained in the holiday season to connect with our guests at delivering merchandize and promotions thoughtfully designed to appeal to them based on whats on their mind at each poi nt in the year, moving Target beyond compelling, to becoming irresistible for our guests. We made enormous progress in our multichannel efforts throughout 2013 as we meaningfully increased conversion both on our website and on our mobile apps. We acquired Chefs Catalog, Cooking.com and Dermstore, extending our online assortment by providing our guests access to additional high-end brands in key home and beauty categories. We launched Cartwheel, our unique mobile savings tool which has far exceeded expectations in both adoption and engagement and we accelerated our investments in flexible fulfillment. As a result, throughout the year, growth in our digital traffic and sales outpaced industry averages. We launched in-store pick up chain-wide at the beginning of November and with very little marketing, this new offering became a meaningful driver of digital traffic and sales. Our store teams did an outstanding job delivering great service when guests arrived to pick up these orders and this is particularly impressive since we launched the service during the busiest time of t he year. We will continue to invest in systems, data and processes to enhance our flexible fulfillment capabilities in 2014 and beyond. In our stores we are committed to enhancing the guest experience by adding dedicated service to key categories like beauty, baby and electronics and by providing training and technology that allows our stores team to go beyond providing basic service to solving problems for our guests. And were continuing to pilot innovations to our store formats. Based on the initial rollout of the CityTarget format and the high single digit comparable sales were seeing in our second year CityTarget stores, were analyzing opportunities to redeem the size and enhance the flexibility of this format opening up a wider universe of potential sites in dense urban areas. While on the work on CityTarget continues, weve also developed a separate smaller format called Target Express at about 15% of the size of one of our general merchandize stores, we believe this design provides us w ith a fantastic opportunity to expand into new trade areas providing a convenient solution to guests who can easily visit one of our other formats. While we expect to offer a carefully curated assortment in frequency  categories like food, health care, beauty and other household essentials, Target Express will also offer discretionary categories including home, electronics and seasonal. Throughout the store we will feature our own brands which offer guests an unbeatable combination of quality and price. We plan to open our first pilot location of this format here in our home market in July so we can carefully study both operational and financial results before we determine our plans to expand this format to other markets. Throughout the organization we continue to find new opportunities to optimize expenses, freeing up resources we can apply to new initiatives. In 2013 our teams saved approximately $200 million by reprioritizing their activities and finding more efficient ways to get things done. Our expense optimization efforts are not a short-term project but a complete overall of the way we work and the team continues to fi nd new opportunities. As a result, we expect the benefit of our expense optimization efforts to reach $1 billion in annualized savings by 2015. Im proud that our entire team has embraced this effort to transform how we work. In Canada the team has moved from a year focused on opening a record number of stores to optimizing the business in run state. As we enter 2014 with a much cleaner inventory position, the teams number one operational focus is on in-stocks, ensuring we have the right quantity of each item in the right place at the right time. In addition, we continue to invest in technology and training to enhance both the tools our team uses and their ability to deploy them most effectively. Were also continuing to implement innovative marketing and merchandizing programs in Canada to raise awareness for our frequency categories like grocery, household essentials, beauty and healthcare. Throughout 2014 we will focus on conveying the depth and breadth of our assortment in those categories and the unbeatable value we provide to our everyday pricing, 5% of the awards, price match and our flier. With enhanced guest awareness of our unbeatable prices combined with the benefit of improved operations, we expect guest shopping frequency to build throughout 2014, driving improvement in sales and profitability. While 2013 will clearly be remembered as the challenging year, I am proud of teams efforts to transform our business and position the company for long-term success. And I want to sincerely thank the Target team for their tireless effort to help our guests recover from the data breach. While there is much more work  to be done, Im inspired by their singular focus on our guests and making things right. As a result, Im confident we will look back on this incident and see that we emerged from it even stronger than before. Now Kathy will provide more detail on our fourth quarter results and key initiatives as we enter 2014. Kathy? Kathy Tesija EVP, Merchandising Thanks, Gregg. In our last conference call, we outlined our plans for the holiday season and mentioned that fourth quarter sales were on track through the first half of November. As we progressed through Black Friday week and the first two weeks of December, guests continued to respond to our promotions and sales ran ahead of our plan. Following the data breach announcement and the rapid change in the pace of our sales, the team reacted quickly making nimble adjustments to minimize our excess inventory. This quick response allowed us to end the year with a clean inventory position. And while our fourth quarter gross margin reflected the addition of clearance activity resulting from the sales slowdown, our team did a great job minimizing the impact. As we built our holiday plans, our goal was to cut through the clutter and reach our guests with compelling offers on exciting merchandize, specifically we aligned our weekly deals and events so guests were receiving a clear message across all channels. And because our guests are budget conscious and love to find deals, we intentionally layered promotions across our circular, cartwheel and our catalog to provide unbeatable value. We used our direct channels to drive urgency at key points of the season and we offered more broad attention-getting promotions like 40% off sweaters. Consistent with past years, we featured hot deals on key items but attracted more attention by offering deeper discounts on fewer items and we were very pleased with the guest response. For the quarter overall, our non-discretionary categories generally saw the strongest sales performance. However, on our more discretionary categories electronics saw an increase in fourth quarter comparable sales led by mobile phones, tablets and video game hardware and software. We also saw relative strength in our sporting goods and housewares categories. Digital channels had a very strong holiday season. Thanksgiving was our biggest digital sales day ever with mobile devices accounting for a full 25% of those sales. We were recently recognized as having the most browsed app by a smartphone and tablet in 2013  and Mobile Commerce Daily just named T arget Mobile Retailer and Commerce Website of the Year. This is the second time weve been named Mobile Retailer of the Year and were pleased to be the only retailer to be honored with the award twice. An important factor in our digital success was the fourth quarter rollout of the opportunity to buy online and pick up in-store. In-store pick up requests represented about 10% of fourth quarter digital orders but they peaked at a much higher rate before Christmas as guests relied on the service as a great solution for last-minute gift shopping. About 30% of store visits to pick up an online order resulted in store shopping on that same trip and the size of that store transaction was much larger than an average store trip. While weve rolled out the capabilities with an external commitment to have orders ready in four hours or less, our team quickly attained our internal goal to have most orders ready in one hour or better. Our survey showed consistently high levels of guest satisfaction with this service and this capability has accelerated our mobile conversion rates. Were also pleased with the continued growth of Cartwheel, our digital savings app, which ended 2013 with over 5 million users who have already saved more than $43 million. Younger guests are particularly engaged by Cartwheel as more than half of its users are Millennials, a much higher percentage than they represent in our overall guest base. Redemption rates on Cartwheel are more than 10 times higher than DC and other direct channels like receipt marketing and email and our analysis indicate that its driving incremental trips and sales. Our pre-Black Friday deals resulted in one of the biggest days ever for Cartwheel as they drove one-third of our active users into Target stores on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We continue to work to enhance the Cartwheel experience. We recently added the ability to scan bar codes to find out if theres a Cartwheel deal on an item and added the capability to sign up for Cartwheel directly through a Target account and email while continuing to provide access to the App through Facebook. As Gregg mentioned, we continue to listen to our guests to understand how we can help them move beyond the data breach and feel confident in shopping at Target. While sales have started to recover in recent weeks and sentiment metrics have begun to improve most notably among our best guests. We continu e to invest to ensure this recovery continues. Beyond our efforts in data  security and chip enabled technology were applying insights from the holiday season to make our merchandise stores and digital channels even more irresistible to our guests. We continue to innovate in ways that differentiate both our product assortments and the guest experience, and we’re investing in pricing and promotions to make our value proposition even stronger. We’re very pleased with the response to Peter Pilotto for Target our most recent designer partnership which launched earlier this month. This collection which features a limited edition assortment of women’s apparel, accessories and swimwear is available at most of our U.S. and Canadian stores and on target.com. We have also partnered with Net-a-Porter.com to offer a curated assortment of the collection to fans across the globe. With lots of social media buzz we a saw long lines outside many of our urban stores on the morning of the launch, and the collection quickly became Net-a-Porter’s fastest selling collaboration in history. Based on last years results Target and Sports Illustrated are once again partnering in support of the magazines annual swimsuit issue w hich is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Target is the exclusive mass retail advertiser and official marketing partner for the issue. This years partnership includes the new 20 page flip cover that celebrates swimsuit style over the past 50 years and features Target’s limited edition swimwear collection. The collection launched at Target stores and on target.com February 17, in advance of the issues on stand date and includes 10 black, gold and ivory swimsuits priced from $15 to $30. Earlier this month, Target began offering AMBAR a new apparel collection designed with the Latina guest in mind. AMBAR is set in 50 U.S. stores this month and is also available on target.com. The line of apparel and accessories features vibrant prints and flattering cuts and silhouettes. This stylish and affordable collection has items ranging from $17 to $40. This spring Target will introduce an assortment of premium skincare featuring seven notable brands, four of which will be exclusively sold at Target. 29 by Lydia Mondavi, Borghese, Laneige and MD Complete by Dr. Zelickson along side industry favorite Vichy, La Roche Posay and Own Skin Health. These brands will be merchandised in two distinct sections, dermatological skincare and specialty skincare, and they have already launched on target.com. We’ll begin rolling out the assortment to 749 U.S. Target stores beginning in March. So whats likely to be the biggest Blu-ray  and DVD release of the year Target will offer an exclusive addition of Catching Fire the second film in The Hunger Games trilogy in stores and on target.com next month. The Target exclusive Blu-ray addition includes 45 minutes of exclusive content from never before seen footage and cast interviews to a behind the scenes looks at the making of the film. This spring award winning singer Shakira is teaming up with Target for her 10th studio album and our exclusive deluxe edition featuring three bonus tracks hit stores on March 25. We announced the partnership and kicked off album preordering with a special spot during the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in January. Last month we became the exclusive retailer to feature Beats music playlists. Beats music is curated digital music streaming services that allows its users to peep into the personal music librarie s of their favorite artists and brands and have them create playlists just for them. By subscribing to Target’s playlist guest can expect a very mix of songs inspired by Target’s rich heritage of music and the taste of the millions who shop for albums at Target each year. In December we launched The Awesome Shop, a beta site that features the top target products recently pinned on Pinterest. The site lets guests explore, get inspired and see what other guests love just like they do in stores. Awesome Shop highlighted the best of the best by only featuring items at the target.com review of four stars or better. We’re also leveraging Pinterest in another unique way to collaborate with three of the sites most influential pinners on a series of party planning collections that will make it easy to throw a Pinterest worthy event. Joy Cho of Oh Joy, Jan Halvarson of Poppytalk and Kate Arends of Wit Delight will each create limited time only collections launched over the course of 2014 including party decor, paper products and serving pieces designed in their signature esthetic. Beyond differentiated merchandise, we continue to provide enhanced service in key areas of the store. Based on guest response to last years launch we have expanded the Target Beauty Concierge’s program to more than 300 stores across the country with new markets including New York, New Jersey, San Francisco and Dallas-Fort Worth. These beauty consultants are brand agnostic and provide guests with detailed, unbiased information and a friendly face in what can often be an intermediating category. We also continue to see great results from the pilot of our new baby layout, a completely redesigned shopping  experience that offers guests inspiring insightful solutions combined with the great value they’ve come to expect from Target. This new layout features a dedicated service desk with a knowledgeable baby advisor to help guests navigate the area and provide unbiased product information. Digital screens and iPads feature inspiration and interactive comparison tools and Bab yCenter content such as buying guides and product reviews We have also incorporated an in department registry kiosk for expecting mom’s or guests looking to give a gift. Merchandised displays have been lowered so guests can more easily interact with large products by travel systems in stores. We have removed barriers to enhance navigation between apparel, gear and baby essentials and we have highlighted the availability of additional online only items in key categories. This summer we plan to grow from 30 stores to more than 200 locations featuring this enhanced baby experience. And based on encouraging initial results in 2014 we’ll expand our test of using mannequins in apparel in our largest format U.S. stores to elevate the store experience, create an enhanced sense of discovery and bring our unique deigns to life. We also continued to augment our digital capabilities driving traffic and sales to all of our channels. Online our top priority in 2014 is continuing to improve the guest experience. All of our efforts will be designed to make things simple, seamless and enjoyable for our guests. To support this priority we continue to hire external talent with deep functional expertise in online merchandising, site merchandising, mobile and analytics. We have recently made enhancements focused on search, product information and checkout making it easier for guests to browse and purchase. In addition now nearly all store products are viable online making this the only place that guests can use Target’s full assortment. Importantly we’re making enhancements while continuing to focus on stability and speed, as a result target.com consistently ranks in the top 10 for retailer site availability and performance. Given the profile of our guests, mobile is more important at Target than for many of our peers. For example, Target’s guest traffic from tablets and mobile phones is greater than our traffic from traditional computers and the shift towards mobile shows no signs of slowing down. In fact usage of the Target App doubled in the short period between last su mmer and the end of the year. To maintain our strong momentum in mobile we’re testing and learning from new features including List  Building, Mapping and Cartwheel capabilities launched during the holiday season. We’re improving conversion by streamlining checkouts and enhancing product information and dynamic content and we are investing to amplify the in-store mobile experience by rolling out guided maps, in-store search and expanded assortment chain wide later this year. We also continue to invest in our flexible fulfillment capabilities which combine the strengths of our digital, store and distribution aspects to provide speed and convenience for our guests. These capabilities allow our stores to add value in new ways, serve our guests as both showroom and fulfillment centers. Following the holiday seasons success of in-store pick up we are moving quickly to roll out the capabilities to shift online orders from our stores this fall. This new capability will create multiple benefits for both T arget as our guests, including shorter shipping times, reduced expenses, lower markdown rates and improved in-stocks. And because our investments in flexible fulfillment drive greater utilization of our existing stores and distribution center assets, we expect to earn an outstanding return on these investments over time. Finally, were pleased with initial performance of Target Ticket, our streaming video service and we continue to invest in features to better serve guest changing needs and behaviors both inside and outside their home. In 2014 we will coordinate our promotions across channels to provide irresistible video offers across our stores, Target.com and Target Ticket. While our fourth quarter results softened following the December 19 announcement of the data breach, we are pleased with the guest response to our holiday season merchandizing and marketing efforts and were confident in our plans for 2014. As always our focus remains on our guests helping them regain their confidence in their Target while delivering irresistible content and experiences in every channel. We believe that our efforts will drive a continued recovery in the pace of our sales and position Target for profitable growth in 2014 and beyond. Now, John will share his insights on our fourth quarter financial performance and our plans for the coming year. John? John Mulligan EVP and CFO Thanks, Kathy. Our fourth quarter financial results reflect strong efforts by our team to handle separate challenges in both our U.S. and Canadian segments. In the U.S. comparable sales declined 2.5% consistent with the  updated guidance we provided in our January press release. This sales performance reflects a 5.5% decline in transactions partially offset by an increase in average ticket. Prior to the announcement of the data breach, fourth quarter comparable sales were running positive reflecting the success of our holiday merchandizing marketing plan. Immediately following news of the breach, sales turned meaningfully negative but began to recover in January. And while its impossible to measure precisely, we believe we would have seen even more improvement had there not been extreme weather across much of the country. Fourth quarter sales penetration on our REDcards was 20.9%, up 5.4 percentage points from a year ago. While the rate of increase slowed down following the breach, year-over-year penetration continued to grow hundreds of basis points through the end of the quarter. Fourth quarter U.S. EBITDA and EBIT margin rates were down more than a percentage point from last years rates, which we were advised to reflect combined results from our former U.S. retail and credit card segments. These profit margins were below our expectations going into the quarter, driven almost entirely by gross margin rate which declined about 20 basis points from the year ago. This performance reflects about 20 basis points of benefit from this years change in vendor payments offset by higher than expected markdowns related to the 10% off we offered prior to Christmas as well as the impact of clearance markdowns at the end of the holiday season. Margin mix was somewhat less favorable than the recent quarters, driven by strong sales in electronics. While below our expectations, fourth quarter U.S. segment gross margin rate was remarkably strong considering the team had to rapidly manage excess inventory in the middle of the quarter when we experienced a sudden change in the pa ce of sales following the data breach announcement. Our fourth quarter U.S. segment SGA rate was 18.4%, about 110 basis points above last years revised rate. About 50 basis points of this headwind was related to the credit card portfolio reflecting a smaller asset base, last years reserve release and this years profit sharing arrangement with TD Bank. Another 20 basis points of headwind was driven by this years change in member payments. The remaining unfavorability reflects the deleveraging effort of negative comp sales. The fact that we experienced only 40 basis points of deleverage reflects strong control of variable expenses, given the magnitude of our comparable sales decline. In the Canadian segment, sales  came in just below expectations. Importantly, as Gregg mentioned, we took advantage of holiday traffic to clear through a significant amount of excess inventory in the quarter. And while we expect some small lingering issues with long lean receipts this year, the Canadian segment ended 2013 in a much cleaner inventory position, paving the way for smoother operations in 2014. In all, the segment drove $0.40 of EPS dilution in th e fourth quarter better than the expectations we provided in our January press release. Turning now to our consolidated metrics, fourth quarter interest expense was 21% lower than last year reflecting the continued benefit of debt retirement funded by the proceeds from the sale of the credit card portfolio. We paid dividends of $0.43 per share in the quarter, an increase of more than 19% from fourth quarter 2012. This was our 185th consecutive quarter in which our company has paid a dividend and 2013 marked the 42nd year of annual dividend increases, a track record of few companies to match. Consistent with last quarter, we didnt purchase any shares in the fourth quarter reflecting current performance and our desire to maintain our debt rating in the middle A range. This approach aligns with our longstanding point of view on capital deployment. First, we invest what we believe is appropriate in our core business. Second, we support the dividend which weve grown annually for more than four decades. And third, we use share repurchase to return cash within the limits of our middle A debt rating. We believe a middle A rating is strategically important as it supports our ability to reliably deliver on our unbeatable pricing strategy over time. In addition, our balance sheet provides the flexibility to maintain our long-term focus in the face of unexpected events like the data breach enabling inves tment and strategic initiatives like flexible fulfillment while we deal with a temporary setback in traffic to sales along with other costs related to the breach. In addition to operating results in the U.S. and Canada, our fourth quarter GAAP earnings reflects several items that reduced EPS by approximately $0.09. These items include charges related to our January restructuring, data breach related costs net of an insurance receivable and continued reduction in a beneficial interest asset partially offset by a small benefit from a resolution of income tax matters. Combining fourth quarter results with performance in the first nine months of 2013 yields full year results that reflect the impact of clear successes and certain challenges. In our  U.S. segment, full year comparable sales declined 0.4% well below our expectations going into the year. This reflects the tougher than expected consumer environment including the impact on the payroll tax increase which just annualized last month, the fourth quarter impact of the data breach and recent headwinds from unfavorable weather, as youve heard from many other retailers. On our U.S. sales, we earned a gross margin rate of 29.8% in 2013, up about 10 basis points from 2012. This rate reflects about 20 basis points of benefit from this years change in vendor payments combined with very strong underlying margin performance in the face of softer than expected sales. Throughout the year, Kathys team did a great job managing inventory resulting in outstanding in-stock levels while avoiding unnecessary clearance markdowns. Our full year SGA expense rate in the U.S. was 20%, up about 90 basis points from last years revised rate. Contrary to what you might initially think, this reflects outstanding performance in light of softer than expected sales and some notable challenges representing more than $600 million of incremental pressure. Including credit card portfolio income, which as you know reduces our SGA rate, about $400 million lower than 2012 reflecting profit sharing with TD, prior year reserve reductions and a smaller asset base this year. And more than $200 million of expense pressure from incremental investments in technology and supply chain to support our multichannel efforts. Without these impacts, our SGA expense rate would have been slightly higher than 2012 but would have been neutral without this years change in vendor payments. This is better expense performance than wed expect on a decline in comparable sales and was driven primarily by two factors; outstanding performance by our stores organization which continued to provide outstanding guest service while delivering productivity increases and our company-wide expense optimization efforts through which our teams are finding better ways to work while deprioritizing less productive activities. As Gregg mentioned, the team continues to find new opportunities to optimize expenses and we expect to reach $1 billion in annualized savings by 2015 helping to fund our efforts to drive profitable growth over the next several years. For full year 2013, U.S. REDcard penetration grew nearly 6 percentage points to 19.3% of sales as more and more guests increased their level of engagement and their spending with Target. Penetration in Kansas City where we began offering  REDcard awards a year ahead of the rest of the country continued to run well ahead of the U.S. overall. Importantly, as part of our broader effort to rebuild traffic and sales in 2014 we will work to reaccelerate REDcard growth in light of the recent slowdown in growth weve seen following the data breach. In Canada in 2013 we generated just over $1.3 billion in sales on 124 stores which were opened on average for a little more than half the year. These sales were well below our plan going into the year leading to grea ter than expected markdowns on a meaningful amount of excess inventory Expense rate were unusually high as well as a result of opening early cycle stores with too many payroll hours, incurring incremental expense relating to clearing inventory and experiencing less leverage on fixed expenses. In the face of these challenges, the team worked tirelessly to improve operations and work through excess inventory throughout the year, clearing the way for an acceleration of sales and profitability beginning this year. Our early cycle store continued to outperform later cycle stores giving is confidence that our operations will continue to become more efficient as our business matures. And having dramatically reduced the congestion in our Canadian supply chain, we will increase the intensity of our marketing message in 2014 regarding value and assortment in our frequency categories. Over time we expect this will lead our Canadian guests to choose Target more often in these categories, driving meaningful increases in traffic and sales. Turning to capital deployment, our total capital investment was about $3.5 billion in 2013, somewhat lower than expected as U.S CapEx of about $1.9 billion was approximately $300 million lower than anticipated. This outcome doesnt reflect a change in strategy, but is simply the result of a lower than expected cost for certain projects and retiming of suspending into 2014. Having sold our credit card portfolio, for about $5.7 billion in March, we significantly reduced our net debt position in 2013, including the early retirement of Haikupon debt. And importantly even in a year of peak CapEx and dilution relating to the Canadian segment combined with the impact of softer than expected U.S sales, we still have the capacity to return about $2.5 billion to our shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchase. With that as context, lets turn now to our outlook for 2014. But before we get to the numbers, I want to discuss a change in our reporting and guidance practices in 2014. Given that our Canadian segment is  now fully operating, beginning with the first quarter of 2014 we will no longer exclude Canadian segment performance from adjusted EPS. To allow for appropriate comparison, l ast years adjusted EPS will also reflect Canadian segment performance as well. With that, lets turn to our full-year outlook beginning with sales. While trends have improved in recent weeks, severe winter weather has been a headwind and we continue to see the impact of the data breach on guest sentiment and traffic. We believe that we will continue to see muted trends in the next few months, but the breach impact will diminish throughout the year as we engage in a vigorous effort to address our guests’ concerns and provide irresistible content offers driving business to our stores and digital channels. In addition, while economic trends are improving, we continue to expect our lower and middle income guests to shop very cautiously in 2014. With that backdrop, our current view is that U.S comparable sales will grow in the range of 0% to 2% in 2014. On those sales we expect a U.S segment EBITDA rate of 10.1% to 10.3%, meaning EBITDA dollar should grow between 5% and 8% this year. Among the drivers of EBITDA margin, we expect gross margin will improve 30 or 40 basis points from our 2013 rate of 29.8%, reflecting improved cl earance markdown rates and more significantly the gross margin benefit of our expense optimization efforts. These benefits will be partially offset by the impact of additional promotional activities and continued investment in 5% REDcard rewards. We expect the U.S segment SGA expense rate slightly better than last year’s 20% rate, reflecting continued discipline expense control and the benefit of our expense optimization efforts offset by our continued investments in distribution and technology in support of our multi-channel efforts. We expect these (indiscernible) investments to be worth $0.05 to $0.10 of incremental EPS pressure in 2014. In Canada, we expect total sales will be approximately double our 2013 experience. As we annualize last year’s124 openings and begin generating comparable sales growth in mature stores. On those sales we expect to earn a much higher gross margin rate in a range approaching 30%. But clearly we continue to see some near-term volatility until the Until the Canadian business matures. While we expect to see better fixed expense leverage in 2014 , the SGA rate will likely remain well above our long-term outlook in a range approaching 40%. Altogether, this will lead to a Canadian segment EBITDA margin rate of minus 8% to minus 10%,  representing more than $400 million of expected EBITDA improvement from 2013. We expect U.S capital expenditures of $2.1 billion $2.3 billion, up slightly from actual 2013 spending. The mix of U.S CapEx will continue to tilt from investments in new stores towards supply chain and technology as we accelerate our multi-channel efforts and continue to find a limited number of new store sites that meet our strategic and financial criteria. I should also note that U.S CapEx reflects incremental investments related to our recent decision to accelerate deployment of chip enabled card readers to all of our U.S stores before the end of the year. In Canada we expect 2014 capital expenditures in the $300 million to $400 million range, down more than $1 billion from peak spending in 2013. We expect once again to raise our annual dividend in the neighborhood of 20% this year, which will mark our 43rd consecutive annual increase. And even with a temperate outlook for near-term traffic and sales and understanding there will be further costs relating to the data breach, our current outlook envision share repurchase capacity of $1 billion to $2 billion in 2014, beginning later in the year as our business stabilizes and we have more clarity on potential breach related costs. Altogether, these expectations would lead to full-year adjusted EPS representing results from operations in the U.S and Canada of $3.85 to $4.15. This estimate excludes approximately $0.07 of dilution related to the continued reduction in the beneficial interest asset. These 2014 expectations represent an improvement of more than 20% from combined U.S and Canadian segment results in 2013. Please note that our full-year outlook does not include potential additional costs relating to the data breach beyond what we already recorded in the fourth quarter, as they’re not estimable at this time. While I realize this may result in a wide range of speculation on the magnitude of these costs, given that our investigation of breach is ongoing it would not be appropriate to say anything more about it than we already have this morning. Regardless of the ultimate dollar amounts, as Greg mentioned, we have the financial strength to move beyond these near-term impacts while we continue to in vest in the future. And as always, we are focused on whats most important, addressing the concerns of our guests and helping them to feel confident shopping with us. Now lets briefly turn to our first quarter outlook. In the U.S we expect first quarter comparable sales in the range of flat to down 2%. So far in February  comparable sales have been running within that range, ahead of our forecast and nearly flat to last year. And I should note while growth isn’t running where it had been earlier in 2013, REDcard penetration so far in February has been running 100s of basis points ahead of last year. On our first quarter U.S sales, we expect an EBITDA margin rate of 9.7% to 9.9%. In Canada, we expect to generate first quarter sales in a range of $400 million to $450 million with EBITDA of minus $150 million to minus $170 million. In light of this near-term operating outlook, we dont expect to have the capacity to repurchase shares in the first quarter, but we expect to resume this activity later in the year. Altogether, our expectations would lead to first quarter adjusted EPS reflecting operating results in the U.S and Canada in the range of $0.60 to $0.75, excluding $0.02 relating to the reduction in the beneficial interest asset and any potential costs related to the data breach. While this has been a challenging year, we are proud of the work of our team and we believe we have the right plans in place to generate meaningfully improved performance in 2014. As we focus on making Target irresistible for our guests, both today and over time, we believe we will go profitably for many years to come. With that, well conclude todays prepared remarks. Now Greg, Kathy and I will be happy to respond to your questions. uestion-and-Answer Session